Father Thomas

Start-class article · First seen: s19 · Last seen: s20
Father Thomas
Father Thomas Aldrich · Aldrich · Sir Aldrich
Father Thomas — portrait.
Character
StatusAlive
First seens19
Last seens20
PlayerBrian
FactionPure Light, Sevryn's recruits

Father Thomas is a human Twilight Cleric of the Aurelian Pure Light — “Father Thomas, Priest of the Pure Light” — played by Brian from session 19 onwards, his replacement character after Mike’s s18 execution. The DM also addresses him as “Aldrich”/“Sir Aldrich” on checks, treated here as a surname (full: Father Thomas Aldrich). He joined the party in session 19 by catching up to their camp on the road: he had been among the patrol that executed Mike, and came not to arrest the party but to atone, having “taken a leave from my order in order to pursue good works” after witnessing “the brutality in the name of what should be goodness” [3], L708). A penitent man at the start of a crisis of faith, he still carries the reflexes of his order — he framed his mercy as sparing Mike a finger rather than his head [8] and reflexively distrusts goblins. He fights with a quarterstaff and club (Shillelagh and Booming Blade through War Caster), opens combat with a reactive Shield (which the DM rules reads as arcane), and dropped Twilight Sanctuary in his combat debut against the fey ambushers [48]. He wears white robes and carries a white wooden shield bearing his holy symbol, and intends to craft 50 gp platinum-ring spell foci with his jeweler’s tools [33], L913-917).

Appearance and personality

Father Thomas is a human dressed in white robes, with no armour and a white wooden tight shield bearing his holy symbol; he walks leaning on a quarterstaff [33]. His default register is courteous and apologetic, a serving cleric trying very hard to be gentle — but the Aurelian reflex keeps surfacing underneath. His very first words to the party were an apology for “that unpleasant business with your friend,” immediately undercut by “but, I mean, he really should have known better” [2]. He frames his break with his order in the language of compassion — “There is no justice in using your faith as a cudgel instead of to help the needy” [4] — yet the line that gives him away is meant as reassurance and lands as a chill: he would not have taken Mike’s head for so small a spell, “perhaps only a finger” [8]. A man at the very start of a crisis of faith, in other words, still measuring mercy in severed digits. He is also reflexively wary of goblins, in keeping with Aurelian insularity (colour established around the Gristleback scene).

On Steven’s Insight read at the introduction, Thomas comes across as honest but “holding back a little bit” [5] — genuine in his atonement, but guarded about something. He is openly, performatively pious: he holds up his holy-symbol shield and declares “the power of my God shall protect us all from the heretics in this world” [9], apparently unaware (or in denial) that he has just joined a party of wanted heretics who steer him off the subject of magic at every turn.

Background

Father Thomas is a serving Priest of the Pure Light, the Aurelian state faith. He introduced himself as “Father Thomas. Priest of the pure light” when he caught up to the party [3]. He was among the patrol that executed Mike in s18 — the party recognise him “from yesterday” [34] — but did not take part in the killing as the executioner; he has come, instead, to atone for “the actions of my comrades” [3]. He says he has been “having doubts for quite some time,” and that “when I saw the brutality in the name of what should be goodness, I chose I had to act. I have taken a leave from my order in order to pursue good works” [6]. This is a leave-of-absence / defection, not (yet) an excommunication.

He maintains that the Pure Light itself “has bestowed magic upon me” — that his clerical magic is sanctioned nature magic and therefore not heresy. He demonstrates by whirling his quarterstaff and casting Shillelagh into the ground with a “boom,” arguing “Nature magic. Not all magic is bad” [7]. The DM also addresses him as “Aldrich” when calling for checks [10], L1049), which reads as a surname or family name — hence the full form Father Thomas Aldrich (flagged for DM/player confirmation).

The Everlight, and the open question of his faith (s20)

Across session 20 Father Thomas names his deity repeatedly and consistently as “the Everlight”: he credits the patrol’s timely departure as “a gift from the Everlight” [23], invokes “the Everlight” when he ritually casts Augury at the Eldwythe bridge [35], and prays to her as he carves runes into his staff. This sits awkwardly with the Aurelian state cult. The DM establishes that the deity of Aurelia is Aurelia itself (nation and god are one name) and that a cleric of Aurelia who instead follows the Everlight is “relatively unheard of,” likening the distinction to a Buddhist versus a Hindu [26].

Whether the Everlight is simply another name for the Pure Light (the faith recorded for Thomas since his s19 introduction as “Priest of the Pure Light”) or a distinct, heterodox deity that marks him as an outlier within the Aurelian clergy is left open; the DM’s “relatively unheard of” framing leans toward the latter. This is carried as an open naming-and-doctrine question pending DM confirmation, and the two names are deliberately not merged here.

Build

  • Race: Human.
  • Class: Cleric, Twilight domain. Caelumn flags the subclass with delight on the reveal — “Oh, you’re Twilight Cleric. Oh, Nick’s favorite thing” [36].
  • Twilight Cleric kit (s19 combat debut):
    • 300-foot darkvision — “Fucking 300 feet. Twilight Cleric Darkvision” [13]; the only party member besides Hugo with darkvision, and by far the longest-ranged.
    • Advantage on initiative from the Twilight domain [37]; rolled a 19 on the fey ambush [38].
    • Twilight Sanctuary (Channel Divinity) — a 30-foot dome of dim light; the DM ruled the temp HP at 1d6+4 for any creature ending its turn inside [17]. The table agreed to roll once per round for pace.
  • Feat — War Caster: lets him cast Booming Blade as part of a Shillelagh-buffed weapon attack — “I got War Caster, so I can do that” [16].
  • Spells seen in play (s19): Shield (reactive, DM-ruled as detectable arcane magic despite divine flavour, [15]; Shillelagh + Booming Blade (the melee package, [7], L1333, L1352-1353); Twilight Sanctuary [17]; Bless [18]; Command (“Flee”, [39]; Cure Wounds flagged as a heal he can offer Caelumn [40].
  • Weapons: he can “really only reasonably use quarter staff and clubs” [41] — a quarterstaff (his walking staff and Shillelagh focus) and a club.
  • Level: matches the party.

Equipment

See Father Thomas’s loadout for the full list.

  • White robes — his order’s vestments; no armour [33].
  • White wooden tight shield bearing his holy symbol — held up as a holy symbol when he invokes his god [33], L726).
  • Quarterstaff — his walking staff and the focus for Shillelagh [33], L710).
  • Club — his backup melee weapon [41], used against a wisp at L1709).
  • Jeweler’s tools — with which he plans to craft platinum rings worth 50 gp each as spell foci, none made on-screen; he frames the 50 gp / 5 platinum-piece cost as the spell-component requirement [11].

Campaign role

Father Thomas joined the party in session 19. Notable beats from his debut:

  • [42]: catches up to the party’s camp at dawn, recognised as “one of the guardsmen that killed Mike” [43]. Caelumn shrewdly disowns Mike on the spot (“no, it wasn’t our friend. It’s just somebody we met”, [44] to avoid confirming the party’s heretic ties. Thomas then names himself and states his purpose: to atone [3].
  • [45]: makes his case for compassion over zeal, demonstrates Shillelagh to argue “not all magic is bad” [7], and lets slip the “perhaps only a finger” tell [8]. Steven’s Insight reads him as honest but guarded [5]; the party keeps him at arm’s length while inviting him along (“we bring him along just to see what happens”, [46].
  • [47]: discusses his crafting plan — jeweler’s tools and platinum rings as spell foci — and confirms he is a club-and-quarterstaff caster who needs money for components [11].
  • [48]: combat debut in the night-camp fey ambush. Opened with 300-ft darkvision and advantage on initiative [13], L1219), negated the first wisp’s hit with a reactive Shield [49], cast Shillelagh-and-Booming-Blade through War Caster [16], and dropped Twilight Sanctuary as the party’s temp-HP engine [17]. He also cast Bless on the party [18] — the Bless that kept a wisp-kill swing on-target for Hugo [50] — clubbed at a wisp [51], offered to revive Caelumn if he fell [40], and Commanded the last wisp to flee [52]. No PC died; Caelumn was driven to ~3 HP but held up partly on the dome’s temp HP.

Session 20: shield of the party, and a wavering faith

On the road out of Aurelia, Father Thomas twice put himself between the party’s casters and Aurelian authority, then saw his own atonement waver at the sight of the undead.

When an Aurelian Binder patrol (an elite heretic-hunter with a horse-sized hound and two archers) descended on the night camp, Thomas, the group’s one visibly-Aurelian member, did the talking. He rolled Deception, weaponising the party’s own trauma as proof of their loyalty: “I have witnessed these people stand by and watch a companion be executed for heresy without any one of them objecting” [21]. The binder, who outranks him “by quite a lot,” was not fooled and pressed him (“You’re avoiding the truth, cleric”), but before the standoff could break, a flash lit the distant sky and the patrol turned away to chase it, leaving the threat unfinished: “I’ll deal with you later” [22]. Thomas credited the reprieve to the Everlight, his repeatedly-named deity this session [23].

At the Eldwythe bridge checkpoint, before the crossing, he ritually cast Augury on his rune-etched bones to ask whether crossing was wise, and drew a “Weal and Woe” omen, both good and bad [24].

The road ambush that night was his set piece. As the party’s Twilight cleric he anchored the defence on three fronts: Twilight Sanctuary poured 1d6+4 (a rolled 10) temporary hit points into every ally within 30 feet each round and filled the area with dim light, which mattered because it let the near-blind Terry see [29]; Turn Undead (DC 14 Wisdom) frightened and incapacitated three of the undead, routing the ogre zombies and a ghoul [30]; and he personally soaked a ghoul’s natural-20 crit for 12 piercing plus 10 necrotic on his temporary hit points and remaining HP without going down [31].

During the Eldwythe downtime he also began a private, heretical project: carving runes into his staff with woodcarver’s tools toward a magical staff of his own. The DM ruled the runes inert until he can fill them with magical ink, a gold-cost component he does not yet have [25], L769), and Thomas hid the work from Barney when the artificer noticed it, insisting he practised only divine magic [28]. The work-in-progress staff is tracked with his equipment.

The undead undid some of his progress. He had, by his own account, been “starting to soften to the idea of magic,” accepting “arcane magic not being all bad all the time,” but the sight of creatures “clearly animated by arcane magic” pushed his atonement arc back toward Aurelian dogma: “maybe maybe maybe Aurelia had it right. I don’t know” [32].

Status at session 19

Alive, and newly travelling with the party. Camped on the cliffside hilltop a day’s walk back inland toward the Eldwythe bridge, having just helped fight off the Pixie and will-o’-wisp ambush. On a leave of absence from his Pure Light order to atone; still believes his own clerical magic is sanctioned, and does not (yet) know how deep his new companions’ heresy runs.

Player

Played by Brian (Discord handle; from the US). Father Thomas is Brian’s second character: his first, Mike, was executed by an Aurelian patrol in s18, and Brian rolled Father Thomas as the replacement for s19 — the second character he has introduced in three sessions. The DM addresses Brian’s PC as “Aldrich”/“Sir Aldrich” on checks [10], L1049).

Notable quotes

“I am Father Thomas. Priest of the pure light. And I have come to you in order to atone for the actions of my comrades.” — Father Thomas, [3]

“There is no justice in using your faith as a cludule instead of to help the needy.” — Father Thomas, [4] (transcript “cludule” is a Whisper garble for cudgel)

“I have taken a leave from my order in order to pursue good works.” — Father Thomas, [6]

“Nature magic. Not all magic is bad.” — Father Thomas, [53]

“I would not have taken his head for such a simple spell, you know. Perhaps only a finger.” — Father Thomas, [8]

“the power of my God shall protect us all from the heretics in this world.” — Father Thomas, [9]

See also

References

  1. ^ Session 19, line 668-677 — A figure from the Mike-execution patrol approaches the camp at dawn; described in white robes, white wooden tight shield, no armour, walking with a quarterstaff.
  2. ^ Session 19, line 685 — Apologises for "that unpleasant business with your friend" — but adds "he really should have known better" (Aurelian reflex).
  3. ^ Session 19, line 695 — Introduces himself: "I am Father Thomas. Priest of the pure light. And I have come to you in order to atone for the actions of my comrades".
  4. ^ Session 19, line 697 — "There is no justice in using your faith as a cudgel instead of to help the needy".
  5. ^ Session 19, line 703 — Steven's Insight reads him as honest "but he is being extremely... holding back a little bit".
  6. ^ Session 19, line 708 — Has "taken a leave from my order in order to pursue good works" after seeing "the brutality in the name of what should be goodness".
  7. ^ Session 19, line 710 — Casts Shillelagh on his quarterstaff to argue "Nature magic. Not all magic is bad"; the Pure Light "has bestowed magic upon me".
  8. ^ Session 19, line 724 — The tell that gives him away: "I would not have taken his head for such a simple spell... perhaps only a finger".
  9. ^ Session 19, line 726 — "the power of my God shall protect us all from the heretics in this world".
  10. ^ Session 19, line 865 — DM addresses him as "Aldrich" on a History check (apparent surname/alias).
  11. ^ Session 19, line 913-917 — Has jeweler's tools; plans to craft platinum rings worth 50 gp each as spell foci; "I can really only reasonably use quarter staff and clubs".
  12. ^ Session 19, line 1049 — DM again addresses him as "Aldrich" on a check (nat 1).
  13. ^ Session 19, line 1198 — "Fucking 300 feet. Twilight Cleric Darkvision" — 300-ft darkvision.
  14. ^ Session 19, line 1219-1220 — Advantage on initiative from Twilight Cleric; rolled a 19.
  15. ^ Session 19, line 1224-1229 — Opens combat with a reactive Shield to negate a 22 to-hit; DM rules the cleric's Shield is still an arcane spell.
  16. ^ Session 19, line 1333 — Casts Booming Blade via War Caster ("I got War Caster, so I can do that") off a Shillelagh attack.
  17. ^ Session 19, line 1420-1435 — Activates Twilight Sanctuary — a 30-ft dome of dim light; DM rules the temp HP at 1d6+4 for anyone ending their turn inside.
  18. ^ Session 19, line 1259 — Casts Bless on the party mid-fight.
  19. ^ Session 19, line 1709-1713 — Attacks a wisp with his club; offers to bring Caelumn back up if he falls.
  20. ^ Session 19, line 1764-1772 — Casts Command ("Flee") on the last wisp, forcing it to dash away.
  21. ^ Session 20, line 274 — Bluffs the Aurelian binder patrol with Deception, weaponising the party's witnessed execution as proof of loyalty; the binder presses him ("You're avoiding the truth, cleric").
  22. ^ Session 20, line 295 — The binder breaks off to chase a sky-flash, leaving the threat unfinished: "I'll deal with you later".
  23. ^ Session 20, line 300 — Credits the reprieve to his god: "that was a gift from the Everlight".
  24. ^ Session 20, line 399-405 — Ritually casts Augury on his rune-etched bones at the Eldwythe bridge and draws a "Weal and Woe" omen about crossing.
  25. ^ Session 20, line 735 — Begins carving runes into a staff with woodcarver's tools toward a magical staff of his own.
  26. ^ Session 20, line 754 — The DM notes a cleric of Aurelia who follows "the Everlight" (rather than Aurelia, whose deity is the city) is "relatively unheard of".
  27. ^ Session 20, line 769 — The carved runes are inert until filled with magical ink, a gold-cost component Thomas does not yet have.
  28. ^ Session 20, line 1169 — Hides the arcane staff-work from Barney, insisting he practises only divine magic.
  29. ^ Session 20, line 1430 — Road ambush: Twilight Sanctuary pours ~10 temp HP into every ally each round and lights the area for the near-blind Terry.
  30. ^ Session 20, line 1580 — Turn Undead (DC 14 Wisdom) frightens and incapacitates three undead, routing the ogre zombies and a ghoul.
  31. ^ Session 20, line 1629 — Soaks a ghoul natural-20 crit (12 piercing + 10 necrotic) on his temporary hit points and HP without dropping.
  32. ^ Session 20, line 1753 — Atonement regresses at the sight of the undead: "maybe maybe maybe Aurelia had it right".
  33. ^ Session 19, line 677 — Inline citation.
  34. ^ Session 19, line 682 — Inline citation.
  35. ^ Session 20, line 399 — Inline citation.
  36. ^ Session 19, line 1199 — Inline citation.
  37. ^ Session 19, line 1219 — Inline citation.
  38. ^ Session 19, line 1220 — Inline citation.
  39. ^ Session 19, line 1770 — Inline citation.
  40. ^ Session 19, line 1713 — Inline citation.
  41. ^ Session 19, line 913 — Inline citation.
  42. ^ Session 19, line 668-695 — Inline citation.
  43. ^ Session 19, line 668 — Inline citation.
  44. ^ Session 19, line 687 — Inline citation.
  45. ^ Session 19, line 697-724 — Inline citation.
  46. ^ Session 19, line 730 — Inline citation.
  47. ^ Session 19, line 913-920 — Inline citation.
  48. ^ Session 19, line 1198-1772 — Inline citation.
  49. ^ Session 19, line 1224 — Inline citation.
  50. ^ Session 19, line 1671 — Inline citation.
  51. ^ Session 19, line 1709 — Inline citation.
  52. ^ Session 19, line 1770-1772 — Inline citation.
  53. ^ Session 19, line 712 — Inline citation.